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Subject:RE: question for Canadians From:eric -dot- dunn -at- ca -dot- transport -dot- bombardier -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Thu, 23 Dec 2004 09:49:23 -0500
Personally, nothing infuriates me more than having to learn codes and
abbreviations. So why use them?
If I'm entering my address, the system should be able to display my
country's name not a list of codes. Same goes for province/state. And on
that topic, why do I have to look at a list of 50 states and 12 provinces
plus territories and dependencies when I have clearly chosen Canada as the
country? Similarly, why does an American have to have the provinces in the
list?
Sure the abbreviations save space on forms and make databases more
compact. But in terms of user interfaces and interactive forms why can't
the user interact with the system without having to deal with the codes?
Behind the scenes, store the information in whatever coding system you
prefer, but translate the code to the full country name for display
purposes. The code you use is then totally inconsequential. If you
currently have no data sharing requirements nor any specific outputs
governed by national or international standards choose whatever code is
convenient or invent your own. Once a code is chosen, output to systems
requiring a different code are as simple as adding to the code table in
the database.
Heck, how much bother would it be to have intelligent interfaces that
filled in as much of the postal code based on country, province/state,
city as possible or the other way round fill in those data from a postal
code entry.
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